April 28, 2013– SPACE – Comet TENAGRA: Cbet nr. 3478, issued on 2013, April 19, announces the discovery of a apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.6) by M. Schwartz and P. R. Holvorcem on CCD images obtained with the Tenagra II 0.41-m f/3.75 astrograph located near Nogales, AZ, U.S.A. After posting on the Minor Planet Center’s NEOCP webpage, this apparently asteroidal object has been found to show cometary features by our team. Stacking of 12 R-filtered exposures, 50-sec each, obtained remotely from Haleakala-Faulkes Telescope North on 2013, April 18.4, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD (operated by LCOGT), shows that this object is a comet: compact coma about 5” in diameter elongated toward PA 110. The new comet has been designated COMET C/2013 G9 (TENAGRA). –Astro Watch

April 28, 2013 – SANTA MONICA, CA. — According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a minor earthquake shook the Santa Monica Bay area at approximately 7:52 p.m. Saturday, April 27. With a preliminary magnitude of 3.2, the tremor occurred roughly two miles north of El Segundo and two miles south of Marina Del Rey. The Los Angeles Fire Department announced that it was in its regular operating mode post-quake. According to the USGS Community-Generated Intensity Map, the 3.2 quake was detected in many areas on both the Westside and the South Bay by more than 1,400 people. No emergency calls were made following the quake. Twitter results showed that the jolt was felt by people on Sepulveda and Washington boulevards, south of Sony Studios in Culver City and in West Hollywood. –Canyon News

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake also struck the Kermadec Islands. It was the 13th major…

April 27, 2013

April 25, 2013 – LATVIA – In 1841, Edgar Allen Poe referred to a maelstrom, or powerful whirlpool in the ocean, as a “whole sea … lashed into ungovernable fury.” Now 172 years later, a YouTube video titled “Amazing monstrous whirlpool” gives gravity to Poe’s words, though (likely) on a slightly smaller scale. Set in Dviete, Latvia, near the banks of the Daugava River, the video depicts a mysterious whirlpool churning — and destroying — all that enters. Huge chunks of ice? Gone. Floating islands of debris? Annihilated. “Swallowing everything dragged towards its direction,” reads the description by Jānis Astičs, “this monstrous whirlpool looks as if a plug has been pulled from the ground beneath.” Astičs isn’t too far off in his analysis, actually. While most whirlpools in nature occur as a result of fast moving currents meeting one another in opposite directions (often caused by ocean tides), the…